Buildings such as high rise condominiums require careful control of leakage of the building fresh water supply system. In such buildings, even small leaks can grow into large problems because the unit may be unoccupied for long periods of time while the small leak is occurring, such as where the occupant of the leaking unit may be away on vacation for weeks or months at a time. A case of such water leakage if undetected can thus damage the structure of the building.
There are a variety of leak detection systems with an automatic water shut off. Two sellers of leak protection equipment can be seen at http://www.flologic.com and http://www.watercop.com. Most of the systems available consist of a plurality of leak sensors located at various leak points in a unit with the sensors communicating wirelessly using z-wave, zigbee, or other RF communication methods to communicate with an automatic shut-off valve for the unit which shutoff valve cuts off the water supply to the unit when notified by one of the sensors warns of a suspected water leak. In these prior art systems, sensors are placed under various leak points such as sinks, washing machines, refrigerators, water rinsing appliances, and other water-leaking risk areas.
Some water leak protection systems use only a flow meter to detect extended continual flow, i.e. systems. The FLOLOGIC® system can detect flow but does not record or analyze the type or quantity of flows and does not detect very small flows. If continual flow over a set time period occurs, then these prior art leak detection cause water flow to be shut off. Although most systems are stand-alone and do not offer notification options, there are some systems that can be set up to send a notification signal to a smart phone or email address, but these are one-way communications. Typically there is no monitoring of the system to ensure that it is working. Most available systems are designed for individual residences and are not part of a building-wide protection system.
In various embodiments are provided a method and apparatus for detecting water leakage in one or more units of a building complex having multiple units (each units with its own water supply) along with identifying the particular unit(s) of the building complex having the leak which method and apparatus, in identifying a leaking event, applies algorithms comparing changes in flow rates compared to one or more selected base line flow rate for the unit(s) and/or building complex.
When a leak incident occurs but is not timely addressed, the water consuming unit having the leak incident can suffer large amounts of water damage.
There is a need to efficiently, timely, and properly manage multiple numbers of flow meter units and possible leak incidences from said units. There is also a need for extended monitoring (e.g., on a 24 hour basis, seven days a week) for one or more water consuming units with possible multiple numbers of leak incidents simultaneously occurring (or occurring within short periods of time).
A flow meter unit has been developed which is operably connectable to a water consumption unit and in various embodiments operably connectable to a central control unit which can monitor the flow meter unit. In various embodiments the method and apparatus can include:
a flow meter unit that monitors usage of a water consuming unit or a water consuming network,
a control unit (local and/or central) that is operatively connected to the flow meter unit and both:                (a) controls the flow meter unit, and        (b) interprets flow measurements recorded by the flow meter unit.        
While certain novel features of this invention shown and described below are pointed out in the annexed claims, the invention is not intended to be limited to the details specified, since a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art will understand that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation may be made without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention. No feature of the invention is critical or essential unless it is expressly stated as being “critical” or “essential.”